Not so great - San Francisco's Nutcracker on PBS....This year, PBS is bringing us the new San Francisco Ballet Nutcracker ….The TV presentation is hosted by Olympic figure-skating gold medalist and Dancing with the Stars idol Kristi Yamaguchi, who recalls how her mother took her to the San Francisco Ballet Nutcracker when she was a little girl.….But the production is sweet and bland and children-friendly to a fault … and most of the principal dancing … is skating-exhibition level.

San Francisco Ballet was the first company to dance the full "Nutcracker" in North America, in 1944. But it was George Balanchine and the New York City Ballet that turned the then-relatively unknown Tchaikovsky score into a holiday tradition - and the ballet world's bread and butter - in the 1950s. Now San Francisco Ballet is about to reclaim the "Nutcracker" mantle in a big way with the nationwide PBS "Great Performances" broadcast of Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson's "Nutcracker" - set in 1915 San Francisco - on Dec. 17.

I watched it last night, in Boston. In fact, it was repeated around 2 A.M., and this afternoon. I sent our local PBS station an e-mail to thank them for airing a ballet and pleaded with them to show additional ballets.

It was a lovely production. Everyone danced very well, and the children were terrific! I did miss scenery, though. I loved the concept of it being early 20th century San Francisco.

I just saw the production this afternoon for the first time. It's far more spectacular in real life than on video (which incidentally looks like upconverted standard definition on our local HD broadcast from KCET).

I'd say that it's by far the most spectacular Nutcracker I've ever seen. Tina Leblanc danced SPF, and I can't enough of her generous, easy dancing. The snow couple (Dores Andre and Anthony Spaulding) were impressive as well. The corps was especially good, too. I was very tempted to stay the night to see Tina dance the grand pas, but that was not to be.

The choreography, especially for the corps, seemed Balanchine-esque in the speed, density of steps, and repetition and building up from simple steps. It's Helgi's best choreography. I'll definitely see it again next year.

Gantz's review is particularly stupid: he complains about trick-filled choreography in SFB, and then proceeds to tell us how Boston's Nut beats SFB because it has better tricks?

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